While the UK slowly goes into meltdown over leaving the EU the people of the Channel Islands are left scratching their heads wondering what the hell Brexit is anyway?
The beautiful archipelago off the coast of France, famous for money laundering and collaborating with the Nazis during WW2, were never in the EU so don’t fully understand what all the fuss is about.
Local politician, Hedley Le Sueur, told us;
“Nobody here in their 8 bedroom houses really gets what’s been going on, sure we’ve all had the radio on in our luxury sports cars driving down our ‘green lanes’ with 15mph speed limits but we’ve never been in the EU and we are still doing just fine.”
The Channel islands, which are made up of Jersey, Guernsey and some less important islands have a very simple system of government. We spoke to chief minister of Jersey, Helier Le Brocq, who explained it to The Herald;
“It’s like this, we are not in the EU and we are not part of the UK however we are part of the British isles. We are self-governing crown dependencies so we look after our own affairs yet internationally the UK is responsible for us. Although not part of the EU we are part of the Customs Territory of the European Community by virtue of Protocol Three to the Treaty on European Union. I won’t go into detail about our governors, centeniers, deputies, vingteniers, honouries and all the others as it may get confusing to outsiders but basically we do what we want, and as bonus the currents around here mean we are refugee free too.
We asked locals on the streets of Jersey’s capital St Helier what effect Brexit may have on them.
Peter (23) who works in finance told us, after we explained what the single market was, that his biggesr fear is that his one bedroom bedsit may no longer be worth the £340,000 that he paid for it.
Sarah (47) who works in finance said, after we explained where Brussels is, “as long as my fags and petrol cheaper than in the UK I don’t care”
Nigel (16) who works in finance said “Brexwhat?”
And finally Mary (96) a retired financial adviser said she couldn’t care less about the European Coal and Steel Community but did ask if “those lovely blue eyed German boys were coming back.”
We tried contacting Bergerac but apparently he now lives in Buckinghamshire.
